Thus Unravels the Titan
by J. Godfrey Vulture
Summary: In the darkness surrounding the fate of Wessex, one man has the power to alter the course of history. A story of sacrifice, love, and realization in a land struggling to breathe. Uthred/Aethelflaed.


**Thus Unravels the Titan**

 _Chapter 1_

oOoOoOo

 **UTHRED OF BEBBANBURG I**

The air is thick with cold. He pulls the fur mantle tighter around his shoulders and hunches in on himself. His fingers shiver like the wings of scattering moths. As drunk as he is, the chill is piercing, settling like a millstone in his gut. He reaches blindly out to his side and finds the tankard of ale he's been nursing. Lifting it to his lips, he savors the wash of muted bitterness over his tongue. The drinker's solace. His eyes listlessly trace the shaft of moonlight that falls from the nearby window across his lap. It is subdued and pale, a glance into the ethereal twilight that comes for them all. Valhalla. Heaven. Everything. Nothing. The thought makes him want to curse and spit like a wild dog, but he finds the anger absent from his bones.

The alehouse reeks of men and leather and a strangled glee. The semisweet act of forced forgetting. The soldier's shadowed respite. Someone passing by taps him on the shoulder, but he does not look up. The unidentified form is quickly gone. He picks the crusted dirt from his boots with his eyes now, washing away the offending clumps of congealed blood and hair and mud until he can see them in his mind as they were when he first wore them, made and gifted to him by the old cobbler in Coccham. The buckles are well-dulled and a sickly brown, and eroded patches dot the surface. He should have cleaned them already. He should have done quite a few things.

He decides he's had more than his fill and heads for the door. He's aware of someone calling his name above the din, but he doesn't stop. In the street there is no life save a cat licking a mottled paw on one of the worn tables in the gathering area. Like a bolt of lightning it is gone upon noticing him, the little white ball swallowed up by the darkness of an alley. He stares after it a moment and then begins to walk.

The hovels and shops that line the streets of Wincaester like crooked teeth pass by him nondescript and amorphous. Through the windows of some he can see fires and children, cooking and intimacy. He swallows the sudden lump in his throat, continuing onward. Minutes pass and a destination begins to take shape in his head. When he arrives before the great, stalwart doors of the abbey he nearly loses his nerve. What need did he have of this place? What if Ragnar was watching? He shakes his head and pushes into the peace inside.

The place is like a dying ember. The low glow of candles fails to bring warmth to the stark stone of the pews and walls, and he feels all of a sudden as if he has walked into a mausoleum. He scans the room and notices a small, svelte shape upon a bench near the altar, bent in thought or reverence or maybe even slumber. When he approaches the figure turns her head and smiles at him, the corners of her eyes creasing in a way that used to make his heart flutter.

"My lord, what an interesting place to find you."

He cracks a wolfish grin. "Abbess Hild. The one woman God has kept from me."

She rolls her eyes. "I don't think it's entirely God's doing."

He chuckles and slides onto the bench beside her. "You do know it's a sin to lie in the house of God?"

She leans towards him and sniffs. "Are you drunk, my lord?"

"Not as much as I'd like to be," he huffs. She gives him a look that would humble a king. He chuckles.

"The Witan is tomorrow, Uhtred," she says pointedly. "You are going to do no favors to Edward Rex with a headache and a swollen tongue." Her reproach is gentle but sincere.

"The lords have made up their minds already, sweet Hild," he cajoles. "An outlaw would not sway a heifer, let alone all the landed men on the Witenagamot."

"But you're no outlaw. Not anymore. And you're a fool if you think you carry that little weight in this court."

He sighs. "How did I ever last without your gentle lesson outside these walls?"

"No doubt a miracle of God, my lord," she says with a laugh. But her pretty face is serious again a moment later. "Uthred, what do you plan to do? All of Wincaester saw your pledge to Edward. While it wasn't exactly… _official_ , Edward will be relying on you being around. Tell me, no secrets. Will you be here when you're needed?"

He avoids her unsettlingly blue gaze. He doesn't answer right away, because truthfully, he isn't exactly sure what he wants to do. What was left for him? Coccham? They were probably better off without their lord. Less Danes paying untimely visit. And Bebbanburg? It was nothing more than a pipe dream until he had an army and the support of Edward, which he would never receive if he absconded again. Finan and his men would follow, but even they would balk at any action in the north. Alfred had been a clever bastard, he thinks grimly. To tie everything Uhtred ever wanted to his son. He would never see his ancestral home again without the boy king. It was like a dagger permanently slipped between his ribs; he couldn't move too far without it cutting deeper.

"You've thoroughly convinced me, Hild," he replies eventually, grandly gesticulating with his hands. "I'll stay here. If only for you."

He slips an arm around her shoulders and pulls her to his chest. She nestles her head into the crook of his neck and settles a little hand over his, stroking his knuckles gently. He turns his head slightly to look down over the flaxen locks covering her head, down the plateau of her petite shoulder, to her legs huddled closely together. Desire courses through him momentarily, but he wills it away. Hild was God's woman now, even if he wanted to take her. And he isn't entirely sure he does. Into his mind there was a flash of long brown hair and a regal face and then it is gone.

Her saccharine tones are hushed. "I have a bad feeling, Uhtred. About what's coming. I fear our darkest days are not behind us." She looks up at him now. Curiosity is alive across her face. "What happened in the battle, lord? The Danes? Aethelwold?"

"He's dead," he says. His voice rings hollow even in his own ears. "By my sword. In the end, he turned on us. He had been whispering to Sigebriht, thinking the Lord of Cent would join him. He overplayed his hand, as every worm does in the end. The cheaters get cheated. The traitors receive their own prescription. I sent him to Niflheim in exchange for Ragnar and would do it a thousand times over."

At her confused expression he continues. "He killed my brother Ragnar." Her small hand tightens around his, and he looks away. His eyes find the crucifix hanging above the altar, and he wonders for a mad moment if the Christ would have interceded for his pagan brother. "In his sleep. The turd was a turncoat and a coward, but I didn't know he was capable of… _that_. He didn't even give Ragnar a warrior's death. His hands were empty. Brida found out, and we went to a seer. Ubba's seer. He told us the only way he was to be freed from Niflheim was by a sword touched by his own blood. Thyra's blood is Ragnar's, and it was hers that sent that bug to the deep."

"Uthred," she begins softly. "I don't pretend to fully understand the ways of your people. But…it sounds like what you did was right. Aethelwold would have been an open sore on Edward's back. The whole of England – _your_ England – is better off." She traces the bottom of his jaw with her fingers. "I am sorry, too. For Ragnar. He was your brother, and I hate that he was taken from you."

He feels a hot stinging in the corners of his eyes and blinks, hard. When he looks back to her he finds her peering up at him, the crystalline blue of her eyes like placid little seas. He fights wildly the urge to pull her head to him and kiss senseless her pouty lips.

He sighs. "As I've said too often, you're too good a woman for God alone, Hild."

She gives him a smile that brings warmth rushing up the back of his neck. "And you are too good a man to be saying such things." She extricates herself from his grasp and stands, offering a hand to him. He takes it, rising to his feet. The world spins for a moment, and he grabs ahold of her shoulder for support.

She raises her brows. "I think water is in order, lord. And a lot of it."

"If you feed it to me, Abbess."

She rolls her eyes. "I will see you after the Witan, lord. Please be in right shape. Edward needs you."

* * *

 **A/N:** Thanks for reading! I'm not sure if I'm going to continue this or where it's going to go, but I just wanted to gauge reactions. If you liked it, feel free to comment!


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